Connecting through Remembering 

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a colleague’s mum. I was struck by the emotion I felt for someone I didn’t even know. As I drove back to school I was reflecting on this feeling. There is something about listening to the story of someone’s life, being told with love. In celebrating a loved one’s life we honour the inherent dignity and value of their humanity. November is a time when we pause and remember the lives of those gone before us. We remember how thy touched us and shaped us. In our living we continue to bring a small part of them to our everyday. In remembering, we keep human dignity at the heart of the matter. In remembering, we become connected with what unites us rather than what divides us. This was palpable on Tuesday at 11am when our whole College community paused in silence during our Remembrance Day liturgy. In that moment we were one. At a time when we are confronted on a daily basis by the impacts of an increasingly polarising world, our work at Clonard is to help our young people find meaning and connection in their common humanity rather than in what divides us. Remembering takes us out of our individual bubble and sends our thoughts and gaze to the other.  

In this spirit next Monday evening we will hold our first community Remembrance Liturgy to pray for those in our own families and College community who have gone before us. As Paul Skippen our Ministry leader wrote in this week’s reflection, ‘Remembrance isn’t about sorrow alone – it’s about gratitude, legacy, and connection.’ In a year when we are highlighting Hospitality, I hope that people in our community of all faiths feel free to gather with us on Monday. All are welcome. 

Clonard’s Illumine reflection can be found here.

Celebrating Learning – Competencies on display 

As we come to our final week’s of learning in our academic year, students are finalising assessments, preparing for exams are celebrating their best work. On Tuesday our Year 7 students showcased their Growth Projects. This was the culmination of their work across the 2025 Growth Days where they pursued a project of passion with a particular focus on learning, practising and demonstrating the elements of the New Metrics competencies. I was so impressed by the different investigations and projects our students shared. I heard about gaining boat licences and reading books for every letter of the alphabet and through sponsorship of this endeavour donating funds to the Geelong Library. I read a first published novel and a family cookbook of ‘Nonna’s recipes’ that would be shared across an extended family. I learned about the requirements to enter the Airforce and become a fighter pilot and I discovered that crocheted octopus are used in the NICUs to support newborn babies required tubes to be fitted to their nose or mouth. What was as impressive weas the capacity of our students to articulate how they had grown as learners using the language of the competencies. Thanks to the work of our Year 7 team who intentionally design this into their curriculum and instruction. Students spoke about how they felt they had experienced mastery, how they had become more reflective learning from mistakes, how they had developed persistence when processes became a little mundane or they were not getting a desired outcome. Further they shared how this is translated into their academic learning at school. This is at the heart of our work with New Metrics. That we equip young people with the competencies to learn and thrive in the world and that these are equal in value to the content knowledge and skills developed through the academic curriculum.  

As a sidenote, during the last Growth Day as students were preparing for their showcase or as Year 9 students undertook their last Study Day before end of semester, staff were evaluating and assessing the competencies for the Semester 2 New Metrics fan reports. This involves using the Ruby software developed by the University of Melbourne to make judgements on up to 25 assessment items for each competency for each student. In Years 7-9 we assess and report on 3 competencies each semester. One of the key tenets about this new generation of assessment is the premise that teachers know their students and have seen these competencies in observable behaviours. You cannot assess competencies in an exam. 

We look forward to our Year 8 expo next week.  

Combined Council Dinner – Thanking our Stewardship Council  

We are fortunate in Geelong to work collaboratively as a Catholic secondary College’s network. An example of this is our tradition to gather annual with the combined advisory councils form each College. At this event we celebrate and share the achievements from the year and offer our gratitude to those members of our community who have served in on our councils. 

I wish to acknowledge our 2025 Stewardship Council members and thank them for their support, commitment and advice. Their insights, questions and discernment helps to shape our College’s improvement agenda. The opening of our Oak Centre, the introduction of a broader range of languages at Year 7 from 2026, our exploration of Big Picture Learning, the development of a College marketing strategy and the introduction of our 7th stream of Year 7s in 2026 have all been influenced by the work of this group.  

As we look towards 2026 we are open to receiving expressions of interest from members of our community who may have a background in Finance, Business or Risk and may be interested in contributing by serving on our Stewardship Council in an advisory capacity. Please contact me via email principal@clonard.vic.edu.au. Interested people would be required to attend an information session with Kildare Education Ministries and complete an application that is submitted to the nominations subcommittee of our KEM Board.  

Alumni Updates – Celebrating 70 

Finally, we celebrate the launch of a new Alumni Newsletter platform which hit inboxes on Remembrance Day. We have been thrilled with the response. Please forward this on to those who may be interested so we can renew and build our alumni data base and connect with as many past collegians as possible as we approach our 70th year. If you would like to join the mailing list, you can email: alumni@clonard.vic.edu.au

Blessings 

Luci